AKRON, OHIO — Another plasticizer expansion for Emerald Performance Materials LLC is featured in this week's Material Insights video.

Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio-based Emerald will add another reactor making non-phthalate plasticizers later this year at its plant in Kalama, Wash. The firm already has doubled production there since 2011. Its plasticizers are used in adhesives, PVC compounds and similar products.

A Middle Eastern business deal and a chemical investigation also are featured in this week's video. In Saudi Arabia, masterbatch leader Clariant is forming a joint venture with Tasnee & Sahara Olefins. Tasnee will buy 40 percent of Clariant's existing masterbatch works there. In West Deptford, N.J., the Delaware Riverkeeper Network has asked a government agency to examine groundwater near a plant operated by Solvay Specialty Polymers. The group has said the site's groundwater has high levels of perfluorinated chemicals. Solvay stopped using those chemicals at the site in 2010.

The video wraps up with news that Ashland has opened a new plant making gelcoats in Changzhou, China. The $60 million plant employs 30 and has annual production of about 22 million pounds of gelcoats. The specialty resins will be sold in marine, transportation and other markets in China and the Asia Pacific region.